


the minor fall, the major lift

by iceprinceofbelair



Series: a force more powerful than gravity [3]
Category: The Fall (TV 2013), The X-Files
Genre: Belfast, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Feminism, Serial Killers, Stroppy Starbuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-07-16 07:05:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16080992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iceprinceofbelair/pseuds/iceprinceofbelair
Summary: “Just-” Scully takes a deep breath. “Promise you’ll talk to me before you offer to stay on for this investigation?”“I will,” Stella says. And she truly does intend to keep this promise when they bid their goodbyes.A reimagining of "The Fall" if Stella and Scully were life partners.





	1. Chapter 1

“He had things entirely under his control which leads me to think that this was not his first murder.”

Stella Gibson casts her gaze over to DCI Garrett Brink who is looking at her like something is beginning to occur to him but he can’t quite put his finger on what it might be. This is a look with which Stella has become intensely familiar. Something, perhaps some small detail, in this investigation reminds him of another - another victim killed in the same way, the same placement of the body, the same street, perhaps even the same word used by a witness to describe a retreating suspect.

“The pathologist reports extensive petechial haemorrhages,” she goes on, hoping to jog his memory now that he’s thinking along the same lines. She places the report in front of him and turns to the relevant page as she continues, “which suggests that the killer tightened and loosened his grip around her throat over a period of 45 minutes to an hour.”

She tries not to look as disgusted by this as she feels when she looks up at Brink again. He explains his involvement in another review three months ago where a similar observation was made. When he tells her that the victim had multiple boyfriends, there is a distinct lack of judgement in his voice which Stella finds refreshing. She decides then that she likes him.

Brink shows her the photograph of the crime scene and she sees that poor girl stuffed unceremoniously into a cupboard and her heart twinges in her chest.

“What was her name?” She asks, trying to commit her face to memory. She doesn’t want to forget this girl. She doesn’t want anybody to forget her.

“Fiona Gallagher.”

Fiona Gallagher.

In that moment, she makes her decision. She’s going to solve this. No matter how long it takes, she’s going to solve this.

~

When Dana Scully’s face appears on Stella’s laptop screen that night, she feels a weight in her chest completely dissolve. Scully is dressed in a pair of what look to be Stella’s pyjamas, short red hair pulled back into a messy bun. Curled strands of hair fall into her eyes and delicately frame her face.

“Hey,” Scully greets softly and there’s a rustle and blur of motion as she sits down on the bed and begins assembling a pile of pillows upon which she rests the laptop. “How’s Belfast?”

“Beautiful,” says Stella honestly. “We should visit properly sometime.”

“Mm, I’d love to visit the museums,” Scully agrees excitedly. “Belfast has so much history. And the Botanic Gardens sound gorgeous.”

“They do,” Stella agrees absently.

Scully cocks her head to the side and peers at Stella through the screen. “You’ve been swimming already?” She asks. “Rough journey?”

“Not exactly.”

Stella knows that she’s stalling and she’s pretty sure that Scully knows that too.

“Is it the case?” Scully asks quietly.

For a moment, Stella ponders what she should say. In a way, it is the case but probably not in the way Scully thinks. It’s not the murder itself but rather the implications of it now that Brink has confirmed a potential connection. The more the thought about it in the pool, the more obvious the connection seemed to make itself.

A serial killer; without a doubt.

“I don’t think this is the killer’s first murder,” Stella begins, intending to ease Scully into this as gently as she can. But, as it turns out, she doesn’t have to.

“You want to stay,” she says and neither her expression nor her voice give anything away. She is quiet for some time before she nods and says, “How long?”

Stella gives her a sympathetic grimace. “I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to the ACC yet but I plan to pay him a visit tomorrow.”

There’s a knock at the door before Scully can respond and Stella excuses herself to retrieve her UberEats delivery of a burger and chips from a local restaurant chain.

“Stella?”

Stella hums her acknowledgement through a mouthful of food.

“Just-” Scully takes a deep breath. “Promise you’ll talk to me before you offer to stay on for this investigation?”

“I will,” Stella says. And she truly does intend to keep this promise when they bid their goodbyes.

With Scully headed to bed, Stella pours herself a glass of wine from the room’s minibar and settles herself at the table to review the Fiona Gallagher case.

(When Stella wakes from a bittersweet dream that night, she is disappointed to find the other side of the bed empty.)

~

Stella leaves Jim’s house the next day thoroughly disillusioned with the institution to which she has dedicated her life. She calls Scully.

“Dr Scully.”

“I don’t want the two murders linked.”

There’s a confused moment of silence. “Stella?”

“He actually said that he didn’t ‘want’ the murders linked,” she fumes, glad that the drivers of these armoured cars are required to keep matters discussed in them confidential because she doesn’t feel much like censoring herself right now.

“Who did?” Scully asks, regaining herself.

“ACC Burns. As if his desire to avoid a serial killer investigation in Belfast changes the fact that these murders are almost definitely the work of a serial killer,” Stella huffs. “I knew he was more concerned about politics than police work but I didn’t think he’d willingly ignore evidence just to make his job less complicated.”

Scully says nothing and Stella is grateful for that. She needs to rant.

“Do you know what he said to me yesterday?” She imitates Jim’s accented voice when she continues. “‘Policing is political here, Stella.’ As though policing has ever been anything but political in London. He sat there in the car and told me they had nothing to go on and I bring him a new line of enquiry on a platter and refuses to consider it.” She takes a breath. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s alright,” Scully says and Stella can hear her smiling. “Feel better?”

“Somewhat.”

“So he didn’t bite?”

Stella sighs, rubbing her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. “Not even a nibble.”

“And you’re certain?”

“I can feel it in my gut, Dana,” she says.

Scully hums and Stella knows she understands. It means, _yes_ . It means, _I’m certain_. If only Jim bloody Burns would take her seriously, they might be able to stop the killer before he attacks someone else.

“I didn’t sell it hard enough,” she sighs, feeling an overwhelming burden of guilt crash down on her. If - when - the killer strikes again, she’s going to feel painfully responsible.

“Stella,” Scully warns. “You can’t take this personally.”

Stella huffs out a humourless laugh. Of course she can. She’s had years of practice.

“You will though,” Scully goes on, sounding exasperated. A pause. “Do you want me to come out there?”

 _More than anything,_ Stella wants to say.

“No. The way things are going, it looks like I won’t get more than a 28-day-review,” she says with a sigh. “Besides, you need to work.”

“I could organise something,” Scully says vaguely and Stella hears another voice in the background. “I have to go. Code Blue.”

She’s gone before Stella can say goodbye.

~

Stella spends the rest of her day building the most airtight case she can with her limited resources. No matter what Scully says to placate her, this is already personal and she’ll never forgive herself if another woman dies because she didn’t advocate hard enough for their lives. She’s thoroughly exhausted by the time she decides she should head back to the hotel but, as always, there are a few things she has to take care of first so she goes to track down Mary to see if she can arrange to look at the exhibit store in the morning.

She gathers her things and steps out into the hallway, setting off in the direction of the reception desk. When she finds it empty, she retraces her steps and follows the sound of voices down another corridor to a break room. She pushes the door open and finds Mary playing foosball with a young PC.

Both men in the room stop to look at her as she enters. This is nothing she isn’t used to. Police stations have always been, in her experience, a place where women are expected to conform to a certain standard of masculinity, especially in the uniform division. She’s never quite been able to fit into that box even when she was trying.

Once she’s organised things with Mary, she says, “I’m going to need a lift back to the hotel.”

“We’re free, ma’am,” says the PC she’d clocked earlier, gesturing to her partner who is still shovelling food into his mouth. When he shoots his partner a pointed look, Stella suppresses a smile. She gets the impression that this young woman could be a force to be reckoned with, under the right circumstances.

“Good,” she says but then she takes pity on him. “Uh, no, finish your food. I’ll wait in reception.”

As she turns to leave, however, she hears a chair scraping behind her and starts turning around again when she recognises the other man in the room.

“Is it Glen?” She asks, trying not to be amused by his attempts to be prompt with his answer without speaking with his mouth full. “DCI McElroy is doing a violent crime analysis of the last five years. Could you ask him also to include break-ins where valuables were ignored but items of clothing, underwear - clean or soiled - were taken?”

“Underwear, yes, ma’am,” Glen responds quietly.

Stella catches the female PC’s eye. For a moment, she thinks she sees the same look in her eye that she saw in DCI Brink’s when they were discussing the Fiona Gallagher case but it quickly becomes something more like panic, like she’s just realised she’s forgotten to lock her front door.

So Stella doesn’t ask and returns to reception where she doesn’t even manage to sit down before the two PCs join her and lead her out to a patrol car. On the way back to the hotel, they pass a police cordon and the female PC sits upright.

“Stop,” she mutters.

Her partner glances over to her, clearly confused.

“Brian, stop!” She repeats, more urgently this time.

“Is that where…” her partner begins, trailing off when she begins getting out of the car.

Stella frowns. “What’s going on?”

The male PC - Brian - turns to her as his partner shuts the door. “Her mother live on this street.”

Stella feels herself grow pale. The poor girl. She can only hope things aren’t are grim as they must look right now.

Stella gets out of the car.

They catch up with the female PC as she reaches the cordon, catching the attention of an attractive man who looked to be in his early thirties. Stella casts her gaze over him. In another life, she thinks, he’d be exactly her type.

“What’s going on, Sergeant?”

“There’s been a shooting in a house about a mile away. A car was stopped just up along there,” he says, ducking under the tape to join them. “We found guns and arrested three men. Just waiting on the dogs.”

At this, Stella watches the PC visibly relax. She catches her eye and suddenly her entire demeanor shifts from relieved to apologetic.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” she says, ducking her head and scratching the back of her neck.

“Not at all,” Stella says, hoping to allow the girl some modicum of privacy. She extends a hand to the DS, noticing the PC pull out her phone once the attention has been diverted from her. Stella supposes she is texting her mother. “Detective Superintendent Gibson. I’m here to review the Alice Monroe investigation.”

“DS Olsen, ma’am,” he says, shaking her hand. He lingers too long. She doesn’t really mind.

Stella nods to the street behind him. “Explosives?” She asks, curiosity piqued.

“It’s drugs,” he replies. “The deceased was well known to us. Will the review take long?”

“A week,” Stella shrugs, watching the PC finish texting and shove her phone back into her pocket. She still looks rattled. “Maybe more. The PSNI was nice enough to put me up in the Hilton.”

“Very nice,” says Olsen, his eyes flicking briefly to her breasts.

“Jim!” Someone calls from behind the cordon.

As Olsen leaves, his gaze lingers on her. Stella holds it steadily until he turns his back. She turns to find the female PC taking a marked interest in her shoes.

“Alright?” She asks softly, trying to keep her stance non-threatening.

The PC looks up at her sheepishly. “I’m fine, ma’am. Sorry about that.”

Before Stella can say anything, the PC sets off back to the car and settles herself in the passenger seat. Her partner meets Stella’s eye and nods.

The rest of the drive is uneventful and Stella leaves without a word when they pull up outside her hotel. The entire atmosphere of the drive had been strange even before the incident at the cordon but it had been practically suffocating since then. If anything, she’s fairly certain her presence had been all but forgotten.

In fact, the rest of Stella’s evening is uneventful save for telling a reporter where he could shove his microphone. There is no call from Scully who had to work late so Stella retires after a quick meal and two glasses of wine in the hotel bar.

~

The following morning threatens to be similarly uneventful until ACC Jim Burns bursts into her office and throws a newspaper onto her desk. When she glances down and sees a photograph of herself sitting with the reporter from last night, it’s all she can do not to groan out loud. She picks up her paper with a roll of her eyes and sets about skimming for details while Jim helps himself to coffee.

“This was last night?” He asks accusingly and Stella sighs. She is absolutely not in the mood for this conversation and she refuses to give Jim anything to hang her with.

“I was at the hotel dining room, about to eat,” she explains patiently but succinctly. “Callan came in and sat down, uninvited, at my table. I didn’t see a photographer.”

“How did he know you were staying there?” Jim continues his interrogation despite her protestations that the picture is nothing more than an orchestration. “What did you say to him?”

“I asked him to leave,” she says. “More accurately, I told him to fuck off and leave me alone.”

Jim doesn’t react to her choice of language but she can tell he wants to and that’s enough. “You should have told me,” he berates her and she raises an eyebrow.

“Told you what?”

“All meetings with journalists have to be on the rec-”

“It wasn’t a meeting,” she interrupts, hoping her tone conveys that she doesn’t care for this accusation. She isn’t in the habit of fraternising with journalists behind the backs of her colleagues and Jim, of all people, ought to know that. “He doorstepped me and I told him to leave. There’s nothing in this. It’s just a photograph.”

“It’s never just a photograph,” Jim mutters under his breath as Stella tosses the paper aside. “What did he want with you?”

Stella sighs. Apparently this conversation is not over, as she had hoped. “He wanted to know about the review and the murder. I refused to discuss either,” she says bluntly.

Jim’s lip curls, clearly unimpressed with her answer. Frankly, she’s unimpressed with his attitude and sees no reason to coddle him about what will prove itself to be nothing more than an unsuccessful ambush.

“I’ve a meeting with the Independent Police Executive this morning,” he says and this is what Stella has been waiting for. She learned long ago that Jim doesn’t particularly care about the police force or the work it does for the people; he cares about himself and his career and Stella has never had much time for career officers. “This,” Jim goes on, picking up the paper again, “has done nothing to make my job easier.”

Stella wants to tell him that making his job easier is not why she’s been sent here but she isn’t in the mood to get into a battle of wills with him. He goes to leave before apparently thinking better of it and returning to toss the paper unceremoniously back onto Stella’s desk.

“Keep that,” he says, his tone telling her exactly what he thinks of her ability to garner media attention. “One for the archives.”

She is too stunned by his blatant rudeness to say anything. By the time she considers what she’d _like_ to say to him, he’s closed the door behind him.

Bastard.

~

After watching Aaron Monroe’s interview tapes, Stella makes a note to ask Mary about drug use when they visit the exhibit store. Despite the plethora of prescription drugs, however, Mary confirms that they gathered no evidence of cocaine use. She recognises most of the prescription drug names bar one and pulls out her phone to shoot a quick text to Scully.

She’s surprised to find a media message waiting for her.

 **_Dana:_ ** _  
_ _i’m so sad_

She’s attached a picture of her favourite mug, shattered in a pool of coffee. Stella bites back a smile.

 **_Me:_ ** **_  
_ ** _This makes Christmas shopping much easier. Any idea what zolpidem is used for?_

 **_Dana:_ ** **_  
_ ** _it’s a short-term sedative. good for insomnia._

 **_Me:_ ** **_  
_ ** _Thank you. I’ll buy you a new mug._

 **_Dana:_ ** **_  
_ ** _ <3 _

Stella tucks her phone back into her pocket and heads back to her office, feeling significantly lighter than before.

~

There’s a knock at her door. A young man she hasn’t met before pokes his head round the door.

“Ma’am,” he says grimly. “A young woman has just been found murdered in her home.”

Stella is on her feet before he can say anything else, throwing her coat haphazardly around her shoulders. As she heads to the crime scene with Brink, she tries to quiet the turmoil in her stomach. She feels responsible and she feels sick. More than anything, she wants to call Scully. Instead, she pulls out her phone and pretends to be engaged in business while she reads over their conversation from earlier in the day.

The little heart almost makes her want to cry.

When they arrive, she finds the first face she recognises - Brian, the PC who gave her a lift home last night - and finds that he and his partner - whose name she learns to be Ferrington - were the first attending officers. She spots Ferrington standing speaking with two other officers and calls her over.

“You’ve been in?” She asks and, at Ferrington’s confirmation, says, “tell me.”

“Suspected homicide,” is all she says.

But Stella knows what she’s looking for. “White professional female in her 30s?”

“Yes ma’am,” Ferrington confirms.

“Strangulation marks?”

Ferrington’s expression shifts from deer-caught-in-headlights to thoughtful. “I think so,” she says. It’s not definitive but Stella will see for herself soon enough.

“Where is the body located?”

“In the upstairs front bedroom. On the bed.”

“Covered or uncovered?”

This question seems to take Ferrington by surprise because she falters like she can’t remember. Stella tries not to be irritated with her. After all, it’s not like she’d been told what to look for. “Partly covered, I think,” she says eventually.

Stella thanks her and fully intends to move on when Ferrington says something that surprises her.

“She was a solicitor.”

It takes a moment for this to register. Stella looks back up at Ferrington who looks...shaken. “What? Was she known to you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she says and she sounds breathless, like she’s trying to keep something inside. Stella understands that feeling. The guilt building in the pit of her stomach is going to take a long time to clear. Probably not until she’s caught him. Maybe not even then.

So Stella stays quiet and waits.

“On Friday evening, we responded to a report of an intruder. The caller said that someone had laid her underwear and vibrator out on her bed. When we arrived, she was the only one in the building.”

Stella barely breathes. “Was anything taken?”

Ferrington’s silence tells her that her suspicions are correct but she stays quiet to let the officer confirm it. “Underwear. Clean.”

Stella doesn’t bother telling her that she should have told her about this incident when she mentioned the importance of stolen underwear yesterday. She doesn’t tell her that timing is everything, that this murder may have been prevented if she’d come forward with this information. She doesn’t say this because she can see that Ferrington already knows this. It’s written all over her face, in the protective stance she assumes when she speaks. She’s expecting reprimand and she’s perfectly willing to accept it. But Stella isn’t in the right frame of mind to be sensitive so she says nothing.

“Thank you, Ferrington,” she says and calls Jim.

When she relays this information to him, he’s initially shocked and Stella thinks for a fleeting moment that she might be making progress. Until he speaks.

“Was she not advised to vacate the property while investigations were going on?” He asks, sounding furious. Stella is glad she didn’t give him the names of the officers.

“There were no investigations. The victim herself decided not to pursue it,” she says, disappointed but not surprised at the look in Jim’s face. The fleeting moment where he thinks _so it’s not our fault_ makes her suddenly understand how someone could be capable of strangling another human being.

“Make me SIO.”

She says it before she’s thought it through. She promised Scully that they’d talk about this first.

“I have the rank,” she goes on, finding herself unable to back out now that she’s started her pitch. She wants this, she realises. She wants to catch him. “I have the experience. I’m here. And I could be made available.”

She says this last with Scully in mind.

(Jim says yes.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's very much just exposition at the moment so the major plot points are all from the series but i promise scully's presence will have an impact on the story in later chapters!


	2. Chapter 2

Stella isn’t normally one to trust strangers in her hotel room. The thought of someone going through her things, even when there’s nothing unusual to find, makes her distinctly uncomfortable. She has carefully cultivated a persona of not caring what other people think of her but she feels exposed when she sends Ferrington to collect her things. She’s always been in control of what information she gives out and letting go of their reins on this one is deeply uncomfortable.

But necessary, she reminds herself as she tunes back in to Professor Reed Smith’s observations. It’s then that she realises how sick this man is.

“He washed her,” she says, thinking out loud. “He washed her and dried her. He washed and dried the bedding. And put her back to bed.”

She can only hope that everyone else in this room is as disgusted by this man as she is.

She’s running over the peculiarities in her head - freshly-painted nails, bathed after death, hair clipping - when Ferrington returns with a duffel bag.

“I got your things, ma’am,” she says, sounding somewhat less shaken than before. Stella is glad for that. She’d hoped getting her away from the crime scene might help. However, when Ferrington lingers, she wonders if the time alone to think was a bad idea after all. “I’ve been thinking I should report myself.”

Yes, definitely a bad idea.

“We should never have left her alone that night. We failed her utterly,” Ferrington says.

Stella sees the same weight of responsibility on her shoulders that she carries herself. This isn’t going to happen. The force needs people like Ferrington to counteract the blatant self-interested policing that Jim Burns embodies. Stella isn’t going to let it happen.

“Report your partner as well?” She asks, watching the struggle on Ferrington’s face. “You have reported it. To me. Let me think about it. I’ll decide what action to take tomorrow.”

This is, of course, bullshit. She doesn’t intend to punish Ferrington for this. It’s clear that she’s punishing herself enough for ten such mistakes and that fact alone convinces Stella that pursuing this officially would be a mistake.

“Yes, ma’am,” Ferrington says but she still lingers so Stella is the one to walk away.

She knows what Ferrington wants. She wants to be punished, to be reprimanded, so that she can feel less guilty about what happened. But Stella refuses to give her that luxury. In policing, guilt is too often compartmentalised and eventually officers can become desensitised to it. Stella isn’t going to give Ferrington an easy way out of this feeling. She’s going to let her sit with it, to feel it, to internalise it. If she’s the officer Stella suspects she could be, she’ll let it drive her.

~

 **_Dana:_ ** **_  
_ ** _talk tonight?_

Reed Smith hands Stella a cup of coffee when she returns from her post-mortem examination of Sarah Kay. She says something medical, something Stella doesn’t understand. She feels painfully inadequate all of a sudden. _Dana would know,_ she thinks. But Stella doesn’t. The simplified version, however, Stella understands perfectly.

“I’m thinking she was pregnant,” Reed says.

Stella stares at her. She thinks of Scully, of the many times they’ve tried, of the cancer that left her without that option. And then she feels selfish for thinking of her partner instead of the girl lying dead in the morgue.

“Oh, Jesus,” is all she manages to say.

“She’s not really showing so it might be very early stages,” Reed continues, as if this is any compensation. And then Reed surprises her with her next question. “Do you have kids?”

“No,” she whispers, thoughts drifting back to Scully.

Stella herself has never particularly wanted children, has always been more focused on other things. When Scully had told her of her cancer and infertility, Stella had seen a desperate longing in her that hurt her deep in her chest. Scully had poured her heart out to Stella that night, had shared the story of her kidnap, of the government experiments she suffered, of the children she couldn't have. And Stella had fallen completely in love with this woman who had been through so much and was still so soft.

“I have two girls,” Reed tells her and Stella realises only then that she hasn’t asked.

They look at each other for a long moment and then Reed tells her she can take the Mr Kay to identify his daughter’s body and the moment, whatever it had held, is gone.

 **_Me:_ ** **_  
_ ** _2300_

~

In the end, Stella doesn’t manage to speak to Scully until almost one in the morning.

“Are you still at the station?” Scully asks incredulously, squinting at the walls behind Stella’s desk.

“It’s been a busy day,” Stella says. “A police officer was gunned down just a few hours ago and another woman was murdered last night. Her sister found her this morning.”

Scully sighs. “Same MO?”

“Looks like it.”

“Did you take it to Burns?”

Stella hesitates. “Yes. He bought it.”

“That’s great!” Scully enthuses. “I knew you could bring him round.”

Scully sounds so happy for her that Stella feels guilty for what she has to tell her. She considers building up to it but Scully is too damn quick for that. So she decides to just rip off the band aid.

“I’m SIO.”

Scully becomes completely silent and still. So silent and still, in fact, that Stella begins to worry that they’ve lost their connection.

“Dana? Is the screen frozen or are you angry?”

“Not frozen,” Scully says blankly. “I’m just- disappointed. You promised you’d talk to me, Stel.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It was spur of the moment,” she says quickly. “I laid out all the details and Jim was still reluctant. I thought that, left to his own devices, he’d try to backtrack. I couldn’t let him do that.”

Scully sighs. “How long do you think you’ll be out there.”

“I really don’t know,” Stella admits. “So far, we have very little in the way of identifying evidence. The killer is meticulous about covering his tracks.”

“Could be months,” Scully says.

Stella winces. “Could be.”

A heavy silence falls between them before Scully shakes herself and changes the subject.

“So, an officer was shot?”

“Yes,” Stella says, grateful for the new topic even if it isn’t exactly better. “I met him briefly last night. Apparently he was gunned down in front of his son.”

“Jesus,” Scully breathes.

“Jim thinks it’s best if I’m issued a firearm,” she goes on, biting her lip. “I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’ve never carried a gun before.”

“Sounds like I’d be right at home in Belfast,” Scully says dryly. “If it helps, I’d personally feel better knowing you could defend yourself.”

“I’ll ask Ferrington to book me in at the range,” she says, thinking out loud.

“Ferrington?”

Stella relates Ferrington’s relationship to the case to Scully who is supportive of her decision not to reprimand her officially.

“She sounds like a good officer,” Scully says with a yawn.

Stella offers her a gentle smile. “She is. I’m going to ask her to be my right hand man on the operation. But you should really get to bed.”

Scully shrugs. “It’s my day off tomorrow. I can sleep as late as I like.” She pauses, looking closely at Stella. “Are you planning to get some sleep tonight?”

“I don’t hold out much hope,” Stella admits.

“Try and get at least an hour? For me?”

“I’ll try,” she says and then something seizes her and her next words come tumbling out of her mouth without permission. “Come to Belfast.”

Scully starts. “What?”

“Please,” Stella whispers. “Come to Belfast.:

Barely a moment passes before Scully says, “okay.”

~

Stella feels sufficiently stupid after the press conference and does her best to distract herself by making a chart of similarities and differences between the three murders. She gets a text from Scully.

 **_Dana:_ ** **_  
_ ** _i for one am always happy to see more of you ;)_

She can’t help but let out a snort of laughter.

 **_Me:_ ** **_  
_ ** _Packing going well?_

 **_Dana:_ ** **_  
_ ** _just trying to decide where to store my kilo of illegal drugs. flight arrives 0712 thursday morning._

 **_Me:_ ** **_  
_ ** _I’ll meet you at the airport._

 **_Dana:_ ** **_  
_ ** _thanks. so...operation musicman?_

 **_Me:_ ** **_  
_ ** _They wanted to call it Operation Eden._

 **_Dana:_ ** **_  
_ ** _the place where the woman gets the blame?_

Stella smiles. Dana Scully is absolutely the only woman for her.

When Stella settles down to sleep that night, it’s on a makeshift cot in her office. She doesn’t even bother taking off her tights or her bra, just kicks her shoes off and leaves them by her desk.

She sleeps through the night without dreaming.

~

PC Danielle Ferrington - Dani, as she prefers - stops Stella on her way out of the incident room to show her the morning’s newspaper. The front page features two photographs of Sarah Kay. In one picture, she’s lying with her arms above her head, posing as though she’s in a magazine. In the other, she’s on a night out, holding a glass of wine.

She hates the media. She really does.

“DCI Eastwood is in your office, ma’am,” says Dani, looking uncomfortable.

“Did he say why?”

Dani swallows. “No, ma’am.”

“But you have an idea,” Stella observes, raising an eyebrow. She has a feeling that, whatever Eastwood wants with her, it won’t be a pleasant conversation.

“People have been talking, ma’am,” Dani says, fidgeting.

“About me?”

Dani shifts uncomfortably. “About your reputation. I mentioned that we’d spoken to DS Olsen on our way back to the hotel and since then some...rumours have been circling. About you.”

Stella sets her jaw. “I see,” she says, scrutinising Dani. “Do you believe them? These rumours?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Good.”

Without another word, Stella sets off towards her office where, as promised, she finds a man sitting next to her filing cabinet. He stands as she enters and introduces himself. She hangs up her coat on the hooks behind the door and perches on the edge of her desk, arms folded across her chest, weapon hanging by her side.

“What can I do for you, DCI Eastwood?” Stella asks. She has no intention of making this easy for him.

“An officer came forward following the death of James Olsen to record his movements leading up to his death,” Eastwood says, looking as uncomfortable as Dani had done. “The officer told us that you had met him the night before he died at a police cordon.”

“That’s correct.”

There is a moment of silence during which Eastwood clearly expected her to elaborate. He clears his throat when it’s clear this is not the case.

“Neither Olsen’s wife nor his colleagues can give an account of his whereabouts for the remainder of that night. I was wondering if you could provide any insight.”

Stella raises an eyebrow. “Well, I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time. My only contact with DS Olson was at the cordon on Sunday evening.”

“So, he didn’t come to your hotel room that night?”

If she hadn’t been expecting this question to come up eventually, Stella might actually have choked at his bluntness.

“No, he didn’t,” she says, sounding much calmer than she feels.

At the moment, the only thing Eastwood has going for him in Stella’s esteem is that he looks and sounds like he wants to be having this conversation about as much as she does. He’s uncomfortable with the accusations he has been sent to make. If she weren’t currently the subject of his scrutiny, she might feel bad for him.

“There have been some rumours circling the station, ma’am, with regards to your reputation,” he goes on.

“My reputation?” She asks, feigning ignorance just to enjoy the sight of this man squirming in his seat when he’s forced to speak about the issue directly.

“The station has become aware of a reputation you hold among the Metropolitan Police,” says Eastwood, apparently resigned to his fate. “A reputation for one-night stands.”

Stella says nothing, holding eye contact until Eastwood looks away. She isn’t ashamed of her past and she refuses to explain her private life to a man she has just met.

“Could you give an account of your whereabouts on Sunday night?” Eastwood continues.

“I’m sorry,” Stella says, making sure her tone sounds anything but apologetic. “Am I under suspicion for the murder of DS Olsen?”

Eastwood sighs. “No.”

“Then I can’t see how my personal life is any of your business,” she argues pleasantly. “I had no contact with DS Olsen beyond what PC Ferrington disclosed. I know nothing that will help you with your enquiry and I have a lot of work to do.”

She sits at her desk as Eastwood gets up to leave. She’s about to look over Sarah Kay’s pathologist report again when she notices out of the corner of her eye that Eastwood is hesitating.

“Why don’t you ask me what you really want to know, DCI Eastwood,” she says, only looking up as she finishes her sentence. She leans back in her chair and tucks one leg up against the edge of her desk, hands folded in her lap.

He hesitates for only a moment. “Is it true?”

Stella smiles to herself. “My reputation. It bothers you,” she says, waiting until Eastwood opens his mouth to deny it before she continues. “The idea of a woman initiating a one night stand. Man fucks woman. Subject: man. Verb: fucks. Object: woman. That’s okay,” she pauses to let this sink in before she continues. “Woman fucks man. Woman: subject. Man: object. That’s not so comfortable for you, is it?”

In that moment, it doesn’t matter that she’s been in a committed relationship for over ten years. She feels his judgement, everybody’s judgement, and she can’t back down. She won’t.

She feels somewhat triumphant when Eastwood’s expression shifts from interested to impressed. She recognises his silence as he leaves. He concedes.

~

There’s a picture of James Olsen on the fallen officers board. Stella tries not to think about it. When Dani arrives, she talks about the Musuo women and sweet nights. She’s still angry about Eastwood’s accusations. So she talks about women in China because it helps remind her that people, no matter where they are in the world, are always people.

So she rambles about sweet nights until Dani asks her, “How do you know so much about it?”

She smiles. “My first degree was in anthropology,” she says, thinking back to her university days. But thinking about it makes her think about the “reputation” she purportedly had in her younger days and she finds herself scowling at the memory.

“Your first degree?” Dani asks with a surprised smile.

“Mm, I have hundreds,” Stella responds, voice and expression deadpan.

It takes a moment, but Dani chuckles to herself and goes to pour two cups of coffee. Stella thinks about Sarah Kay, about her pregnancy. She thinks about how close Dani’s name is to Dana’s.

“Do you want kids?” She asks.

There’s a soft smile on Dani’s face that Stella has seen on the face of every women she has ever heard respond positively to that question. It’s something special, she thinks, the way a woman imagines raising a child. The smile is soft, fond, almost wistful.

“Maybe. One day,” she says.

“Do you have a man?” Stella goes on, setting her coffee cup down on her desk and picking up the bottle of nail polish. She wonders, for a moment, where Dani found it.

“A man? No,” says Dani with a huff of laughter and something about the way she says it sets a bell ringing in Stella’s head. It plays a familiar tune. “I’m gay.”

And there it is. She looks up again, holds Dani’s gaze deliberately and smiles slightly.

“My partner will be arriving tomorrow from London,” she says carefully as she begins painting her nails red. “I’ll need a lift to the airport.”

Dani nods. “What time does the flight arrive?”

“Quarter past seven,” says Stella. “Pick me up at quarter past six?”

“Yes ma’am,” says Dani, making a note in her notebook.

And then there’s a gunshot and Stella finds herself taking charge without really knowing how it happened. Before she knows it, she’s ordering Dani to take care of the woman who is screaming and she has a hand on DCI Eastwood’s cheek and she’s calling him by his first name, all anger she felt before quickly draining away.

Well, it drains away for a little. And then Jim corners her in the bathroom, babbling about how Breedlove was having an affair with Olsen’s wife, about how he thinks she should feel guilty, how he would have left his wife and kids for her after the night they spent together twenty years ago. He follows her to the mirror, stepping close. She stands her ground.

All she can say in response to his assertions is, “that would have been a mistake.”

Apparently, it’s the right thing to say because he leaves her alone.

“Christ,” she mutters to herself and then she catches her own eye in the mirror.

Even to her own eyes, she looks harsh. Part of her wonders if she was too hard on Jim, if she should have said something less blunt. She pushes this thought aside. Jim is a grown man, a grown man who is still hung up on a single night from a lifetime ago and Stella doesn’t have the time nor the patience to cater to his feelings.

~

When Stella is lying on Sarah Kay’s bed, trying to imitate exactly how her hands were tied against the bedframe, a horrible thought occurs to her and she voices it to Reed.

“It’s possible that he was in here with her and had her tied up when there were patrol cops at the front door,” she muses.

Reed stops and lowers her camera, looking shocked. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah,” Stella says, sitting up and gesturing to her right. “The answering machine was over there. It was set to play messages as they came in,” she goes on, pulling out her phone. “She might even have heard the call.”

As she plays Dani’s message for Reed, she can’t help but imagine how Sarah Kay would have felt if she had heard it, how frightened she must have felt. She wonders what it must have felt like to have hope dangled in front of her but to be unable to reach out and take it. She stands up, shivering as she feels herself being pulled into Sarah Kay’s body. She tries to shake her off.

“Why professional women? What’s he punishing them for?” Reed asks, hitting the nail right on the head.

He is punishing them. Stella is certain of that much.

Reed invites her out that night for a drink but Stella is so exhausted by the day’s events that she goes straight to her room and falls asleep in her clothes.

~

“Oh, thank you,” says Stella gratefully as Dani hands her a Starbucks cup. She takes a sip and it burns her tongue but, at this point, she really doesn’t care. She hasn’t slept well since arriving in Belfast and even less so since beginning work on Operation Musicman. She’s never enjoyed living out of a hotel room, much prefers her own bed. And she misses Scully.

Dani sits beside Stella in the airport seats, one ankle tucked beneath the knee of her other leg. She settles her own coffee cup in the space between her thighs. Stella closes her eyes.

Several minutes pass before Dani speaks up.

“I didn’t know you had a partner at home,” she says, voice thoughtful. “You never mentioned it.”

Stella nods. “I’d like to say that’s because I keep my private life separate from my work life but that would be a lie. It’s- it’s more complicated than that. I came here as an outsider and I needed the station to respect me. You know how tightly knit a police station can be.”

“Did you think having a partner would make us respect you less?” Dani asks, obviously confused.

“Not exactly,” Stella admits, considering her words carefully. She isn’t sure how to phrase her next sentence. As it turns out, she doesn’t have to.

“Tell me about her?” Dani asks quietly.

Well, Dani is a police officer. Stella really shouldn’t have expected anything less.

When Stella catches Dani’s eye, she looks different. Calmer, maybe? Stella isn’t certain. But there’s a palpable change in her entire demeanor that unexpectedly sets Stella completely at ease. In that moment, she feels like she’s known Dani for years.

“Her name is Dana,” Stella says fondly. “She’s a doctor. We met when I was a patient of hers back when I was a DS. There was just something about her. We seemed to just- fit.”

Dani smiles. “That sounds like something out of a book.”

“I suppose it does,” Stella agrees, laughter lacing her words. “I consider myself very lucky to have met her. She’s a remarkable woman. Well, she’s an American but nobody’s perfect.”

To Stella’s surprise, Dani laughs more freely than she ever has in Stella’s presence. The sound is so joyful that Stella chuckles quietly too. She feels a sense of solidarity growing between them and wonders if that is where this new comfort stems from. Right now, they aren’t superior and subordinate. Right now, they’re just two women who love other women, defying the odds in a patriarchal institution created by a heteronormative society.

Stella feels safe.

“She makes you happy,” says Dani. It isn’t a question but Stella answers her anyway.

“Impossibly so.”

Dani’s smile widens and the corners of her eyes crinkle happily. “Good. You deserve someone who makes you happy.”

All Stella can do in response to such an openly sweet and kind comment is try to prevent the shock she feels from seeping into her face. She does look at Dani with what she hopes is wry amusement - but she’s not sure she pulls it off. Dani looks at her seriously.

“Ma’am, if I may. I’m not usually this candid without a few glasses of wine but you are a truly inspiring woman. You deserve light in your life and I’m glad Dana brings you that.”

In the time it takes Stella to gather herself enough to respond to this, Dani has flushed a startling shade of crimson.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” she begins sheepishly, ducking her head into her hands. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me this morning.”

“Not enough sleep, I imagine,” says Stella wryly, thinking of the long hours they’ve been keeping since the launch of the operation. When Dani doesn’t look up, Stella puts a hand on her knee and squeezes softly. “Thank you, Dani. I appreciate it.”

Stella would like to say more, would like to return the sentiment but she needs time. Perhaps eventually she’ll invite Dani out for a drink and they’ll talk more.

By the time the Arrivals board says that Scully’s flight has landed, Stella has finished her coffee and Dani is bouncing her leg impatiently, staring at a spot on the ground about ten feet in front of her. Just a few minutes later, Stella spots a familiar redhead emerging from the crowd and her heart fills with warmth.

She stands, startling Dani out of her daze. She catches Scully’s eye and a smile spreads across her face in response to her partner’s delighted grin.

Stella makes her way forward as Scully does a little bouncy walk-run towards her as best she can without letting go of her suitcase. As soon as she’s close enough, she abandons her case and throws her arms around Stella who promptly buries her face in Scully’s shoulder and just breathes her in.

“I missed you,” Scully says, pulling back and leaning forward to kiss Stella sweetly. “The house is too big and empty.”

“A few weeks in a hotel room and it’ll seem like paradise,” Stella says with a smile. “It’s not the roadside motel situation you’re used to but I hope you’ll adjust to decent water pressure and room service.”

“I’ll manage,” Scully grins and kisses Stella again.

Stella slips an arm around Scully’s waist and takes over her suitcase with her free hand, guiding her over to where Dani is standing, holding the handbag Stella had abandoned in her haste.

“Dana, this is PC Dani Ferrington. She’s my right hand man on the operation.”

Scully extends a hand in greeting which Dani shakes.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Scully smiles. “Stella’s told me you’ve been invaluable to her so far.”

Stella watches as the tips of Dani’s ears flush pink and has to hide a somewhat satisfied smile. When it’s clear Dani is too flustered to speak, Stella takes pity on her and changes the subject but not before she makes her blush down to her neck.

“I wouldn’t get nearly enough done if it wasn’t for her,” she says with a mischievous smile. Scully raises an eyebrow at her, clearly amused, but Stella knows when to stop pushing. “The hotel isn’t far. I have to get back to work but we can go out for drinks tonight if you like?”

“That sounds nice.”

Stella voice grows soft. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too,” Scully says and they follow Dani out to her car.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah sorry this took so long. i had uni work to catch up on!

Stella is helping Scully unpack when she gets a phone call.

“The killer has sent a letter to Sarah Kay’s father,” she tells Scully, already putting her coat back on. She leans in to kiss Scully briefly. “I have to go.”

“Go, I’ll be fine,” Scully says, giving her a shove towards the door. 

Stella hesitates with her hand on the door handle. “Thank you for coming.”

Scully rolls her eyes. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“Yes, duty calls,” Stella agrees. “Drinks tonight?”

“Call me when you’re done.”

And Stella leaves her to it.

~

When she arrives at the station, Mary leads her though to where Marion Kay and her father are waiting. 

“It came in the post this morning,” Mr Kay says as she examines the letter through the evidence bag. “I opened it and Marion has touched it but that’s it.”

Stella nods, eyes flicking over the letter so fast that she can’t read it. Her mind is racing so she hands it to Mary and asks her to read it out loud. She paces as Mary reads.

“Dear Mr Kay. I saw your daughter, Marion, named in the newspaper and was able to obtain her address without too much difficulty. I also saw that you had to identify your daughter’s body and I’m sorry you had to do that.”

Stella chews anxiously at the skin around her nails, never quite biting hard enough to break the skin. She tries to imagine what the killer was thinking when he wrote this. Does he feel remorse for the father’s struggle? Is he a father himself?

“Please understand,” Mary goes on. “I would never have killed her if I’d known she was pregnant. Babies are innocent.”

There’s that word again, the one Stella had talked Jim out of putting into the media release. Innocent.  _ Babies are innocent,  _ he said. But women are not. She wonders if this man has a daughter, how he feels about her if he does. Would he say these things about his own daughter? How does he justify the discrepancy for himself?

“And I’ve always felt very protective of children. Part of me says, ‘What’s one less person on this earth?’ Part of me hopes I do not have to meet you face to face in this world or the next to explain.” Mary takes a deep breath and Stella suspects this is hitting home for her.

_ He believes in an afterlife,  _ Stella thinks. She files this information away.

“I took her driver’s licence from her blue wallet. Now I’m giving it back. You won’t see the cat again. Cats are evil creatures.”

Stella can’t help but raise her eyebrows at this. She adds potential past animal torture, particularly cats, to her list of things to consider when building a profile of the killer. She wonders briefly what happened to Sarah Kay’s poor cat. 

But then, Mary speaks again and blows everything Stella has been thinking about completely out of the water. 

“One must have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star,” she says and then falls silent.

The phrase is familiar to Stella but she can’t place it.

“That last sentence,” she says thoughtfully. “Is it from a poem?”

Nobody in the room can answer her so Mary plugs the phrase into Google and there is a very tense minute while they wait for the results to load.

“It’s from ‘Thus Spake Zara-’ um,” she stumbles over the last word and a memory of her university days come back to Stella in a blinding flash.

“Zarathustra,” she finishes. “Nietzsche. Have you got the context?”

Mary clears her throat and leans closer to the laptop screen. Stella closes her eyes to listen. “I say unto you, one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. Alas, the time of the most despicable man is coming. He that is no longer able to despise himself. Behold, I show you the last man. What is love, what is creation, what is longing-”

“What is a star?” Stella mouths along with her.

“Thus asks the last man, and blinks,” Mary finishes.

In the silence that follows, neither the Kays nor Mary will meet Stella’s eye as she glances around the room. She asks Mary to print her a copy of the extract and clears her throat.

“Well, we have your fingerprints on record, Marion. We’re going to need yours too, sir,” she says.

Mr Kay seems to come back to himself. “Of course,” he says quietly.

“We’ll take a look at these fingerprints, paper analysis, ink analysis. We’ll check for indentations,” she takes a deep breath. “This could be very significant for us.”

With this, she prepares to leave when Mr Kay speaks unexpectedly, voicing someone Stella has already wondered.

“He talks about meeting me in this world or the next,” he says. “I believe he has had faith at some point in his life.”

Stella says nothing, uncertain as to where this is going.

“I’d like to make an appeal,” Mr Kay goes on, startling Stella into silence. “A public appeal. I’d like to ask him to stop what he’s doing, stop these terrible crimes, give himself up, repent,” (this is the word that hits Stella the hardest,) “and ask for God’s forgiveness.”

All Stella can do for several long moments is blink.

“I’ll speak to my team about whether that’s the best course of action,” she says eventually.

Mr Kay nods. “Please, consider it.”

When she takes the idea to Jim, he’s initially hesitant, which she understands. Neither of them are happy about the idea of pleasing the killer, of catering to him. But nevertheless neither Jim nor Stella can deny that this could be an invaluable opportunity to open up a line of communication between the killer and the investigation. It could entice him out of the woodwork, even if just to gloat. And Stella has tracked serial killers before. Once they get a taste of the danger of close communication with the police, they rarely stop flirting with it.

This could be what they need.

~

Stella leaves Jim to weigh the pros and cons of an appeal on his own. She heads back to her office and grabs a stack of blank paper from the nearest printer, beginning to write out words and phrases from the letter that jump out at her. She works - writing and pinning pages up on her wall - with a fervour which reminds her of the typical image of a conspiracy theorist, staring at a wall of words and images connected by lines of red string.

Frustrated with her lack of progress, she calls Scully.

“I have a useless brain that produces nothing but nonsense,” she says, throwing herself down into her desk chair.

“Have you considered that you just need to sleep?” Scully suggests calmly, quite used to Stella’s dramatic outbursts. “When was the last time you ate?”

Stella thinks and realises that she doesn’t actually remember. Her silence prompts a sigh from Scully.

“If you can’t remember, it was probably too long ago,” she says and Stella hears the sound of drawers opening and closing. “Don’t roll your eyes at me.”

Stella smiles. “You’re an X-File in yourself, Dana,” she quips.

“Eat something,” Scully says, sounding faintly amused. “I’m going to explore the city for a bit. Call me when you’re up for drinks. And please don’t stay too late. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” says Stella, feeling significantly less overwhelmed than she had done just minutes ago. Scully has that effect on her.

~

Stella has been staring at the photographs of the Sarah Kay crime scene for so long that she can almost feel her eyes drying out. She’s so focused that she’s startled quite violently by a voice from the doorway.

“This takes me back,” says Scully, observing Stella’s pinboards with amused interest. 

She looks particularly beautiful, Stella thinks, dressed up for a night out in a maroon wrap top (which Stella suspects used to be hers), fitted black trousers, and shiny black heels.

Stella smiles and stands to give Scully a hug. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m taking you out for drinks,” says Scully, leaning in for a slow, sweet kiss. Stella opens her mouth to say that she still has work to do but Scully shushes her. “It’s almost eleven. We’ll be lucky to find anywhere closeby that’s still open on a Wednesday.”

“It’s eleven?” Stella asks, surprised. 

Scully kisses her again. “You know I love how dedicated you are,” she says, breath hot against Stella’s lips. “But this is my first night in Belfast. I want to spend it with you.”

“Now how could I say no to that?” Stella asks, giving Scully one last peck before she grabs her coat.

Scully slips her hand into Stella’s as they walk down the corridor. As the pass the break room, Glen pops his head out with a cheeky grin. Through the door behind him, Stella catches Dani’s eye and her lips twitch into a smile at the look of determination on her face. The sleeves of her blouse are rolled up to her elbows and her hair is falling into her face.

“Ferrington is kicking Stone’s arse at foosball if you’re interested in a show, ma’am,” says Glen, still grinning madly. 

Scully shoots Stella a glance and squeezes her hand. “As much as we’d love to celebrate Dani’s victory, Stella and I have somewhere to be. Absolutely no work calls unless it’s urgent. She’ll see you all in the morning.”

Stella rolls her eyes as Scully begins to drag her away. 

“Call me if you need me,” she corrects with a joyful laugh and falls into step with Scully.

Behind her, she hears someone say, “ _ that’s  _ her partner?”

And someone else, “you all saw her laughing too, right?”

But she doesn’t stop to listen.

~

As Scully predicted, they spend a fruitless ten minutes looking for a nearby pub that’s planning to serve alcohol for more than twenty more minutes. So they end up back in the hotel bar and make it through one drink (during which Scully’s hand creeps steadily further up Stella’s thigh) before deciding to go upstairs. 

The doors have barely closed on the lift before Stella pushes Scully up against the wall with one knee pressed between her legs, leaving a trail of nips and kisses all the way down her neck to her shoulder. Scully gasps, sending a shiver through Stella’s body. Stella pushes forward, capturing Scully’s lips with hers. She barely hears the lift arriving and only just manages to step away from Scully in time for the doors to slide open. 

The hallway is empty. 

Scully intertwines her fingers with Stella’s, pulling her along the corridor and shooting a sultry look over her shoulder. Stella tugs on her arm to get her to turn and pulls her in for another kiss. She tucks an arm around Scully’s back and presses closer until Scully is almost dipping in her arms. Scully tilts her head back, teeth scraping off of Stella’s bottom lip. 

A door opens further down the hall and Scully pops upright again with a mischievous smile. A girl in her mid teens is walking towards them, looking desperately at the floor. Scully kisses Stella’s neck and lets her fingers slip away from Stella’s, once again leading the way down the hall. Stella is breathless; she’d never known what it was like to be teased like this until she met Dana Scully. 

By the door, Scully stops to slip the keycard into the lock but Stella catches her wrists before she can get there, spinning her round and pinning them above her head against the door. As Stella kisses her again, she lets her hands slip down the wood until they find Scully’s hips. She tucks her fingers into the waistline of Scully’s skirt and untucks her top at the back. She makes it halfway round Scully’s body before she’s stopped.

Playfully, Scully pulls open a button in the middle of Stella’s blouse before pushing her away to arms length and letting them in to the room. For a moment, Stella feels almost too dazed to follow, gazing longfully at Scully’s retreating back as she pulls her top up over her head. As Stella steps into the room to let the door swing shut, her eyes trace the line of Scully’s back.

When Scully turns back to face her, a strand of her red hair is stuck to her lipstick and it’s too much for Stella who crosses the room in four quick strides and pulls Scully to her, tangling one hand in her hair and letting the other wander town her back, beneath the waistline of her trousers. Scully’s hands are busy unbuttoning Stella’s blouse with a sense of urgency that hadn’t been present before. This surprises Stella because Scully has always been, and likely always will be, an absolutely awful tease. It’s a good thing Stella understands the pleasures of delayed gratification because, on occasion, this kind of foreplay has lasted from the beginning of dinner until well past midnight when they are both tipsy and Stella is so flustered that she can barely walk straight. 

Nobody has ever made Stella come undone like Scully.

Stella kicks off her shoes and pulls out of the kiss, delighted when Scully actually whines. Her eyes are closed and she tries to move closer, pouting, asking Stella to kiss her again. But Stella has other plans for her mouth. 

She starts on Scully’s neck, wanting to tease her the same way she’s been teased tonight. But Stella doesn’t have quite the same patience as Scully and soon she’s moved on to her shoulders. Scully unzips the back of Stella’s skirt and gives it a tug until it falls to pool around her feet and then begins wrestling with Stella’s tights. After a moment of struggle, Stella takes pity on her and pulls them down herself, all the while kissing down the middle of Scully’s chest. 

Scully’s breathless whispers of Stella’s name make her all the more determined to tease her so she slows down, playing with the back of Scully’s bra without making any attempt to actually unfasten it. 

“Stella,” Scully breathes and her voice hitches in the middle which makes Stella feel a little lightheaded. 

As she shifts her kissing below Scully’s bra, she sinks carefully to her knees, anchoring herself with her hands on Scully’s hips. She hesitates by Scully’s navel and places her kisses all the way around it. Scully squirms and, when Stella looks up, her mouth is hanging open, head tipped slightly back in anticipation as Stella tucks her fingers beneath the top of Scully’s underwear.

She shifts down further, takes the fabric between her teeth and-

Her phone rings. 

Despite herself, Stella actually groans. 

“Oh for fucks  _ sake!”  _ She says, standing. It doesn’t help that Scully is trying very hard not to laugh. She kisses her again.

Scully’s hands move to Stella’s shoulders, pushing her away. “You have to get that,” she says, sounding as reluctant as Stella feels.

“Says who?” Stella grumbles but she already knows that she’s going to answer it. 

“If you don’t, I will and I’ll make sure I sound like this is the worst possible time for a phone call,” says Scully and Stella is amazed at her ability to tease. 

Stella huffs. “Fine,” she says, removing one foot from her tights on her way to her coat. She digs the phone out of the pocket and takes a seat on the edge of the bed.

“Gibson,” she says, trying not to sound as breathless as she feels.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your night, ma’am,” says Dani while Stella finishes removing her tights, “but it’s urgent.”

Stella plucks her blouse from where it’s clinging to the end of the bed and begins pulling it on, turning the phone to speaker-mode and leaving it among the blankets. “Another attack?”

“Yes, ma’am,” says Dani and she gives the address. “Shall I pick you up? It’s on the way.”

“Yes, thank you, Dani,” says Stella.

“Ten minutes,” says Dani and hangs up. 

Stella tips her head back to kiss Scully one more time and finishes buttoning her blouse. She zips up her skirt and grabs her shoes, deciding to forego the tights. 

“Wait,” says Scully and Stella turns. The sight of her in just her underwear makes Stella regret that she ever took a job with such unpredictable hours. Scully steps close and loops her arms round Stella’s waist. “Dani said ten minutes.”

Stella smirks and lets her shoes fall to the floor.

~

Dani is quiet for most of the journey but she keeps shooting Stella nervous glances.

“Something the matter, Ferrington?” Stella asks sharply, feeling distinctly like she’s had all the judgement she can take about her sex life for one trip. 

“No, ma’am,” says Dani quickly, gluing her eyes to the road. She sits in silence for a long moment and Stella feels as though she could slice through the tension with her nails right about now. 

Dani takes a breath as though to say something, but then doesn’t. Twice. And then finally-

“Your blouse is inside out, ma’am,” she says, clearing her throat and, even in the dark, looking distinctly red. “I- I mean, it’s not overly noticeable with your coat but, um, I just thought you might like to know.”

Stella can’t help but let out a snort of laughter. “Try not to make any emergency stops,” she says and undoes her seatbelt, stripping off her coat and scarf and then finally her blouse. When she’s sitting in just her bra, she casts a glance over to Dani who is very pointedly not looking at her. Stella smiles to herself. 

With Stella redressed, Dani pulls up to the cordon and Stella is quick to flash her badge at the nearest officer to let them through. Stella notes the ambulance which tells her that the attack was recent, that there’s still chance to save this girl.

“Paramedics inside?” She asks the nearest uniform. When he confirms this, she turns to Dani. “We’re going to need human scent dogs.”

Dani, as always, goes about her work efficiently while Stella begins changing one of the forensic suits in the back of Dani’s car. She’s only managed to take off her scarf and jacket (for the second time) when Dani returns, looking worried.

“You should call for backup, ma’am,” she says and Stella can’t help but be surprised. 

“What?”

“There was an arrest in this area this morning,” she says, looking towards the gathered crowd which is indeed threatening to become a mob. Stella follows her gaze. “This isn’t South Belfast. This could all kick off. I think you should order TSGs.”

Stella understands that Dani knows this town better than she does. She grew up here. She has a better instinct for when something looks to be dangerous and although Stella wouldn’t dream of calling in tactical support for this kind of crowd in London, this isn’t really her call. She glances back towards the crowd.

“Okay,” she says. “Do it.”

And Dani, in typical Dani fashion, just does it.

Finally fully covered, Stella enters the house, finding the paramedics moving the girl on a stretcher on the first floor. 

“What’s her condition?” She asks through her mask.

“Critical,” says one paramedic.

Stella moves away from the stairs to let them through. “Where did you find her?”

“First bedroom, to the left,” says another.

Stella is careful to watch where she steps as she heads into the bedroom. She finds the killer’s instruments of restraint on the bed - a pair of tights and the robe of a dressing gown. She also finds a facecloth which she can only imagine was stuffed into the poor girl’s mouth so she couldn’t scream for help. 

Stella tries to imagine how the killer came at her. Perhaps he hid behind the small piece of wall beside her bedroom door and waited, threw himself at her as she came through the door, pinned her to the bed. But, then again, this particular serial killer does seem to have a flair for the dramatic. Perhaps he crept up behind her while she was taking off her make-up in the bathroom across the hall, presented himself to her first of all as a reflection. That would explain why the facecloth was his gag of choice. Perhaps he pinned her up against the bathroom wall and grabbed the nearest cloth to keep her quiet. Did he know, at this point, that there was another man downstairs?

Shaking herself, Stella heads over to the dresser where she spots a passport. Upon opening it, she finds the victim’s name: Ann Brawley. The excess passport photographs inside show that she could, as expected, be easily mistaken as a sister of Fiona Gallagher, Alice Monroe, or Sarah Kay. 

Outside, Stella sends Glen in the ambulance with the victim with instructions to get a medical opinion of her condition and gather all forensic evidence possible. And then she calls Scully.

“Hey, Stel,” she answers and it’s always so much nicer when Scully greets her like this. Sure, Stella finds the whole ‘Dr Scully’ thing as sexy as the next lady but, especially right now, she needs someone familiar, someone safe.

“Dana, could I ask you to do something for me?”

“Sure, what do you need?”

(“Clear a path for the ambulance there, please!” Dani yells, heading towards the cordon.)

“The victim survived. Her name is Ann Brawley. They’re taking her to Belfast Memorial. Can you-”

There’s a crash.

“Get back, ma’am!” Dani yells and Stella ducks down behind the car. 

Everyone is yelling and there are shards of glass flying in every direction. After a moment, Stella hears Scully’s voice calling her name desperately through the phone.

“Dana, I’m sorry. I’m here,” she says and hears Scully sigh with relief.

“What’s happening?”

“Apparently we’re not in Kansas anymore,” says Stella. “I have to go but can you get to the hospital and find out anything you can?”

In Stella’s peripheral vision, she sees Dani take charge, holding the TSGs back until the ambulance can leave and then clearing a path for them to get through.

Scully pauses. “You need to get assigned cases like this more often. I forgot how exciting police work can be.”

There’s another explosion and Stella gasps in surprise. “Thank you, Dana. I’ll meet you at the hospital as soon as I’m done here.”

As Stella hangs up, Dani ducks down beside her.

“Are you alright, ma’am?” She asks and Stella nods briskly. “Is it the same guy?”

“Yes. But this time he’s really fucked up,” she says, ducking away from another explosion.

Dani pokes her head up over the door and sighs. “Looks like it’ll be a while longer, ma’am.”

Well, Belfast is certainly a colourful city.

By the time the crowd is dispersed, Reed has arrived on her motorbike and begins changing into her overclothes. Stella nudges Dani.

“If you’re coming in, you’d better get changed,” she says. 

~

They’re moving the body of a man - Ann Brawley’s brother - when she gets a call from Glen telling her that Ann Brawley is still alive.

“Is Dana there with you?” She asks.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says. “She certainly knows how to get information.”

Stella smiles fondly. “That’s why I asked her to come. How did you do with forensics?”

There’s a pause. “The staff are keeping access limited strictly to essential medical personnel. I’ve got her clothes but they’re denying permission for a forensic examination right now.”

“Shit,” Stella curses. “Put Dana on the line for me?”

“She’s not here, ma’am,” he says. “She’s working on getting parental permission. She reckons that’ll override the doctor’s decision.”

“Okay,” Stella says, taking a deep breath. “Call me when you know something. Professor Smith and I will be there soon.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She hangs up and pinches the bridge of her nose, giving a deep sigh. Reed cocks her head in question. 

“Everything alright?”

Stella gives a brief nod. “Ann Brawley’s doctor won’t allow a forensic examination.”

“Why don’t we go down there and see if we can speak to them?” Reed suggests. “I’ve done all I can do here for now.”

“I’ll meet you there,” says Stella and goes outside in search of Dani.

~

At the hospital, she’s not proud to say that she is short with the attending doctor. She tries to keep herself calm and of course she understands the importance of placing Ann Brawley’s health and survival over forensic evidence but she also can’t stand when hospital staff speak as an authority on forensic science when they clearly are not. Does nobody understand that she wants to catch this guy? She wants this girl, all girls, to be safe.

Reed pulls her aside. “Look, this is my world. I know how a doctor’s mind works.”

Stella starts to say that she’s part of this world too but she knows that isn’t true, not the same way it’s true for Reed and for Scully. Instead, she works on taking deep, slow breaths to calm herself down.

“You said your partner was working on parental permission?” Reed asks. “It’s the best route in this situation. Parental permission is like an access all areas card in a hospital. Trust me.”

It’s a waiting game from then on. Ann Brawley remains comatose and Stella drinks two cups of coffee. She sits with Reed quietly for a while, thinking over and over the crime scene she’s just visited, trying to place anything significant. But nothing comes to her. 

And then Reed speaks.

“The older I get, the more I have two selves,” she says, staring off into a point in middle distance. “The medical self that’s confronted every day with the biological basis of existence - blood, internal organs, corpses.” She says these words so casually that Stella feels for a moment as though the situation is rather absurd. “And then I have another self that bathes m kids, puts them to bed, kisses their little cuts and bruises better.”

“There’s a name for it,” says Stella quietly. “It’s called doubling. I do the same. So does my partner.” She pauses for a moment, lost. “So does the killer.”

“Stella!” Scully says, appearing through a doorway next to her. She’s carrying a clipboard.

“Where did you get that?” Stella asks, caught between feeling bemused and impressed. 

“It’s a copy of Ann Brawley’s chart,” she says, neatly sidestepping the question. She passes the chart to Stella who squints at it but gleans little information from what looks, to her, to be a collection of meaningless words. She offers it, instead, to Reed. “The MRI indicates that there is brain function but, if she doe recover, there might be permanent brain damage.”

Stella sighs, rubbing her forehead with her fingers. She’s starting to get a headache. She needs more sleep. Not paying attention, she almost jumps out of her skin when Scully puts a bag in her lap.

“Brought you a change of clothes,” she says, playfully undoing the top button of Stella’s blouse. Then, she pulls away, retreating behind her professional persona in the blink of an eye. “I’m going to stick around here for a bit and see if I can help out. I’ll keep you updated if anything changes.”

Then, she glances at Reed and gives a stiff smile. “Hi, I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Dr Dana Scully.”

Stella bites her lip to keep the smile at bay as Reed, apparently oblivious to Scully’s jealous energy, shakes her hand and offers to buy her a coffee. Stella leaves to get changed and, by the time she gets back to say goodbye, Reed and Scully are whispering together like old friends. 

Scully blows her a kiss on her way out the door.


	4. Chapter 4

After her conversation with DCI McElroy concerning Annie Brawley’s internet videos, Stella finds herself struggling to calm down. It’s times like this that she feels disillusioned with the police force. They’re paid for protect people and yet, in a male-dominated institution, too many male officers still view women as somehow deserving, culpable.

She doesn’t think she’ll ever forget the way McElroy spoke about Annie.

_“Now there’s an invitation to the party if ever I heard one.”_

Stella feels sick with anger. She’d chosen this man as her deputy, trusted him to do right by these women, and now she can’t help but feel like it’s her own fault for trusting anybody but herself. This has always been her problem. She has trouble relinquishing control; if a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing herself.

Annie’s words come back to her as she sits in her darkened office, unwilling to turn on the light until she’s able to breathe normally again. She thinks about Annie saying that she’s up for rough sex, tries to see her through a man’s eyes, through the killer’s eyes. It’s a simple truth that most women know a man who has fantasised about completely dominating a woman, having her under his control. She wonders if that’s what McElroy wants.

She shakes this thought from her head sharply and rests her head on her arms, slumped ungracefully forward against her desk. She’s so damn tired of this.

There’s a knock at her door and Stella lifts her head to find Dani standing there, looking unfairly fresh considering the hour.

“Next of kin information for Ann Brawley, ma’am,” she says, placing a file down on her desk. “Her parents died a few years back in a gas explosion and she doesn’t have any other siblings but she does have a grandmother living in Sheffield.”

“Contact her. Let her know what's happened.” Stella asks, feeling a deep pang of sympathy for the girl who might well wake up alone.

 _If she wakes up at all,_ says a cynical voice in her head.

"What about friends?" She asks to quiet it.

“Her phone is pin-protected so we haven’t been able to access her contacts,” says Dani. “We’re going to call her work in the morning. Hopefully they’ll be able to pass on the information to the colleagues she was close to.”

Stella nods, feeling suddenly sick with exhaustion. She thanks Dani as she takes her leave and begins to make up her cot. She sets an alarm for 6am and is instantly asleep.

~

When Stella wakes, it’s still dark outside. She feels wired, like she’s late for something, and she has the distinct impression that she’s not alone. She props herself up on her elbow and squints round the desk. She thinks initially that she’s been woken by somebody coming to look for her but she doesn’t see anybody waiting for her.

As she sits up fully, she spies Scully curled up on the sofa chairs with her back against the filing cabinet and her head resting against the wall. Her knees are tucked snugly against her chest and she’s wrapped up snugly in Stella’s coat.

Quietly, Stella stands and makes her way over to crouch next to Scully.

“Dana,” she says gently, resting a hand on her arm and wincing when Scully jerks awake, hands flying towards her waist for a weapon she hasn’t carried in nearly twenty years. “It’s okay. It’s me. I’m sorry.”

Scully visibly relaxes as she meets Stella’s eye. “Sorry,” she says quietly, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

“It’s alright. I’m sorry I scared you,” says Stella softly. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d go back to the hotel when you were finished at the hospital.”

“I did,” Scully sighs. “It didn’t feel right. I kept thinking about when you called me from the crime scene and there was an explosion and I didn’t know what was going on.”

Stella nods as she listens, tucking Scully’s hair gently behind her ear.

“And then I was with Reed while she was examining that poor girl and I just- I needed to be close to you,” Scully finishes meekly, casting Stella a longing glance.

At this, Stella takes a seat next to her and pulls her close, resting her cheek against the top of her head.

“Close enough?” She whispers and Scully smiles.

“Much better,” she says

They stay like this for a while, Stella isn’t sure exactly how long, before Scully begins to droop against her.

“You’re sleepy,” she says teasingly.

“Well, we can’t all function on nothing but coffee and adrenaline,” Scully says with a pout.

Stella laughs softly. “Come on. You can take the cot. I don’t think I’ll get any more sleep tonight anyway.”

Scully pulls back, looking concerned. “Nightmares?”

“No,” says Stella honestly. “I just feel wound up. I need to swim.”

“It’s still a bit early for that,” Scully mutters, squinting at her watch. “We could go for a drive?”

Stella kisses her forehead. _“We_ are not going anywhere,” she says, standing and pulling Scully to her feet. She leads her over to the cot and pulls back the sleeping bag. “You need to sleep.”

Scully’s protests amount to no more than a petulant moan and she lets Stella help her get settled. Her hair falls over her face when she lies down and Stella pushes it back fondly. Quietly, she gathers her things and heads for her car, planning to drive around the city until the pool opens.

She pulls out of the station car park and lets her body settle into the familiar motions of the drive. If she can’t swim, she thinks, this is the next best thing.

~

Several lengths and hours later, Stella is painting the nails of her left hand when she hears the door to the ladies swing open followed by the echoing pop of thick heels against tile.

“Very fancy,” says Scully, crossing the room to wrap her arms around Stella’s waist from behind. She’s shorter than Stella in her smaller heels so Stella can only see her from the nose-up.

She smiles.

“This is the colour he used to paint Sarah Kay’s nails,” she explains, stifling a yawn against the inside of her wrist.

Scully tucks her forehead into Stella’s shoulder.

“Appropriate,” is all she says, sounding just as tired as Stella feels.

For a moment, Stella forgets that she’s at work, feeling the domesticity of the situation flood through her like the first sip of hot chocolate on a snowy day. She wants to stay like this forever.

“Good swim?” Scully asks, fingers playing with the damp hair at the nape of Stella’s neck which hadn’t been properly covered by her swim cap.

“Very,” says Stella, blowing on her nails to dry them. “Did you get some sleep?”

“A little,” Scully mumbles, detaching herself from Stella and picking up the bottle of nail polish from the edge of the sink. She takes Stella’s hand and starts carefully painting the rest of her nails. “I could do with about 24 more hours, though.”

Stella knows how she feels. “I’ll take a nap after the briefing,” she says, anticipating Scully’s next words.

“Good,” says Scully with a mischievous smile. “You’re starting to look a bit like a raccoon.”

“So I am,” Stella says, glancing at herself in the mirror. “It feels like I’ve been here for months.”

“Lack of sleep will do that to you,” Scully quips cheerily. “It’ll also raise your blood pressure and put you at risk of diabetes.”

Stella laughs. “Alright, Dr Scully, thank you for your input, but I’d quite like Dana back now if that’s okay.”

Scully sets the polish aside and reaches up to kiss the tip of Stella’s nose. “I think Dr Scully’s gonna be around until she actually sees you nap later.”

“Fair enough,” Stella concedes as Scully rifles through Stella’s cosmetic bag and emerges with her concealer. Gently, Scully applies it to the dark circles under Stella’s eyes and begins carefully blending it in.

“Gotta look good for the cameras,” she mutters under her breath before she freezes and flushes as red as her hair, clamping her lips together as though she’s trying to prevent any more involuntary commentary from slipping out.

Stella smiles. “I’m ready for my close up,” she teases and Scully shoots her a glare which would be much more effective if her face wasn’t still a remarkable shade of crimson.

“There,” she says, taking a step back to examine her handiwork. “Beautiful.”

She says this so earnestly that Stella almost blushes herself.

Scully quickly packs away the make-up while Stella pushes her hands through her hair, sighing when it stays rather flat by her usual standards.

“How about we order room service tonight?” Scully muses as they head out into the hallway. “You can have a nice long shower and I’ll pick a movie.”

“Something we’ve seen before,” Stella says, quite sure she won’t be able to concentrate on anything new.

Scully looks thoughtful. “Juno?”

“Perfect.”

When they reach the press room, Scully takes Stella’s hand and kisses her softly before she pulls her in for a hug. “Good luck,” she says quietly.

Over Scully’s shoulder, Stella catches the eye of a man who is walking towards her with a look of total intensity. He’s wearing a visitor’s pass but he’s unaccompanied. This image barely has time to strike Stella as incongruous before she sees him turn as Brink calls him back and guides leads him down another hallway.

 _Must have gotten lost,_ she thinks as she turns her attention to the Kays with a reassuring smile. Mr Kay looks remarkably composed given what he’s about to do and Stella has to admire his resilience.

“Ready?” She asks but it’s perfunctory. She’s already on her way inside.

~

When Stella exits the briefing, she finds no sign of the Kay family and takes a moment to herself to breathe. Mr Kay’s emotional appeal had tugged desperately at her heartstrings even after he’d been ushered from the room and now all she wants is to lie down in a dark room and let the immense feeling of guilt she’s currently nurturing sit in her gut. She’d been so focused on how this appeal could help force contact with the killer that she hadn’t seriously considered the extent of the effect this could have on the Kays.

She thinks back to her first conversation with Jim about the possibility of a serial killer and thinks of a thousand things she could have - should have - said to make him listen.

Maybe then she could have prevented this, could have stopped another family from going through this hell.

Rationally, she knows that she’s being unfairly hard on herself. Sarah Kay was murdered the very night after she herself arrived in Belfast. She’d spoken to Jim only that morning. There is nothing they could have done to prevent it. But Stella still feels intensely responsible.

Once she’s composed herself, she sets off in search of the Kays and finds Mr Kay having tea with Mary in the break room.

“Thank you,” is the first thing he says and his voice is hoarse from crying. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Not at all,” Stella reassures him, glancing briefly around the room. “Where’s Marion?”

“She’s with Dana,” says Mary. “She didn’t say where they were going.”

Mr Kay smiles slightly. “Thank her for me when you see her?” He asks. “She was very kind.”

“I will,” Stella says, getting a clearer picture of what took place after the Kays left the briefing.

She catches Mary’s eye and raises her eyebrows, silently asking if she’s okay to stay with Mr Kay. Mary smiles back at her. Stella takes this as a yes and sets off in search of Scully and Marion. Before she can get very far, however, she hears Dani’s voice call for her.

“Marion is in your office with Dana, ma’am,” she says quickly, clearly on her way somewhere else.

“Busy?” Stella asks and Dani smiles sheepishly.

“I’m looking for teabags,” she says. “You only have coffee.”

Stella can’t suppress a soft huff of laughter. She offers Dani a quick smile and makes her way to her office where she does indeed find Scully comforting a crying Marion.

“It sounds cliché,” Scully is saying as Stella slips inside, “but I really do understand what you’re going through.”

Marion offers a weary look. She’s clearly heard this a hundred times since it happened. But Scully isn’t discouraged.

“My sister was murdered back in 1995 by a man who mistook her for me,” she says softly, glancing down at the floor. “We were so different growing up but we were always close. When she died, I felt unmoored, like I had nothing to guide me anymore.”

Marion observes Scully with a scrutinising stare for a long moment.

“I feel like I’ve woken up in a country where I don’t speak the language,” she says eventually. “I never considered a world without her and now-” she breaks off, burying her face in her hands.

Scully shuffles closer and winds an arm around her back, shushing her. “I know,” she’s muttering. “I know. It’s okay.”

While Marion cries, Stella catches Scully’s eye with a sympathetic smile. She knows all about Melissa, of course, but it’s something she hasn’t heard Scully speak about for many years. Hearing the story again throws Stella back into their past, when Scully was still learning to trust her with the bizarre and unexplainable aspects of her former job.

Scully carefully detaches herself from Marion and beckons Stella outside with a nod of her head.

“Are you alright?” Stella asks, wondering if perhaps this has brought up unpleasant memories of Melissa’s death but Scully waves her concern away.

“She really needs to speak to someone,” says Scully, running a hand through her hair. “All the attention is focused on her father and how he’s coping. She doesn’t have anybody to support her.”

Stella frowns. This is something she truly hadn’t considered.

“I’ll arrange for her to speak to a bereavement counsellor,” says Stella, pulling out her phone to make a note. “The fund set up for Alice Monroe might be able to help with that.”

Scully sighs. “Is there anyone else you can ask?” She says, looking earnestly at Stella who can only offer a look of confusion. Scully lowers her voice further, casting a glance towards the door. “Marion told me she feels like Sarah has lost her identity because of the way the media is spinning the story as-”

“As an extension of the Alice Monroe case,” Stella finishes for her. “Of course.”

Scully bites her lip. “I’m going to give her my number in the meantime. I- I don’t feel good about leaving her hanging.”

As a doctor, and a woman of similar experience, Scully has a much better sense of these things and so Stella offers no argument.

“I’m going to speak Mary, see if she can organise support for Marion,” she says, stepping forward to give Scully a quick hug. “Are you happy to stay with her for a bit longer?”

Scully nods, one hand already resting on the door handle.

“Thank you for this,” Stella says as she takes a step back.

Scully smiles. “You know you don’t have any teabags in here?”

Instead of answering, Stella rolls her eyes and shoves her gently towards the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter is shorter than the others. i just felt like i'd been writing the same scenes for a million years and i needed to be done with it. normal service will hopefully resume next time.


	5. Chapter 5

The lab analysis of the letter they’d received from the killer is mch more fruitful than Stella had hoped given how much care he has taken to leave behind no trace of himself at the crime scenes. It confirms for her that the letter had truly been genuine, that the anguish contained within it was real and overbearing. She tries to imagine him, grabbing a sheet of paper from the top of a stack, perhaps kept next to a family computer or in a study. He hadn’t been thinking, hadn’t considered that there could be an imprint from something written on the sheet above.

In this case, a drawing - a drawing of a woman with a baby in her bulging stomach.

“Ma’am,” Dani greets absently as Stella enters her office, finding her PC absorbed in a case file. 

Stella pins the up on her wall and takes a step back. 

“What do you think of this?” She asks as Dani comes to stand beside her. “Imprinted on the letter the killer sent to the Kays.”

“He has children,” Dani says, sounding shell shocked. 

“Serial killers can sometimes have a happy home life. They split themselves in two, the father and the killer,” Stella says, mind racing with the implications of this discovery. 

He has a daughter, a young girl, probably no older than 10. If he has a daughter, he’s probably married if the Catholic sentiment evident in his letter is anything to go by. Is his wife perhaps pregnant? Is that why their daughter has drawn this particular figure? Or perhaps she’s recently given birth. It’s possible, then, that the killer has more than one child.

The idea throws Stella off-balance as she considers what catching him, convicting him, will mean for the future of his children, for his daughter. Stella wonders how close they are, if she looks up to him with wide eyes the same way Stella had done her own father. She wonders how he can justify murdering these women when his daughter will one day grow up to be one. She wonders, sickeningly, if he will ever feel the same urge to kill his grown-up daughter that he’s exercising now.

Shaking her head, she glances round her office and spots Scully’s travel mug on her desk. When she touches it, she finds it warm. The last time she’d laid eyes on her partner had been almost eight hours ago when Scully had left Stella to sleep on her cot while she went back to the hotel to catch up on her paperwork.

“Where's Dana?” She asks, making Dani start violently and then flush. 

“I haven’t seen her,” she says, a little too quickly. 

Stella narrows her eyes. “PC Ferrington, are you keeping secrets from a superior officer for any particular reason?”

“No, ma’am,” says Dani, trying not to look guilty and, in doing so, looking like she might well have committed the Kennedy assassination. She bites her lip. “She asked me not to tell anyone.”

Stella raises a sly eyebrow. “Even me?”

Five minutes later, Stella opens the door to the roof where she finds Scully leaning on the walled edge, looking out over the twilight glow of the city.

“Hey,” Stella says quietly, coming to stand next to Scully and mirroring her position. 

“Dani cracked then?” Scully says with a smile.

“She held out longer than I expected.”

Scully huffs a laugh and Stella takes a moment, in the silence, to admire how beautiful Scully looks in the purple glow. For Stella, Scully had always looked more beautiful in the midday sun when her hair was ablaze with sunlight and her freckles stood out against her pale cheeks; in particular, her eyes looked beautiful in the warmth of the day. But now, she looks an entirely different kind of beautiful, a more domestic, softer beauty that makes Stella feel a little drunk.

Stella shifts closer and slings an arm around Scully’s waist, prompting Scully to rest her head against Stella’s shoulder. Stella kisses her hair.

“It’s beautiful up here,” says Scully lazily, nuzzling closer. “Shame it’s so cold.”

“How long have you been here?”

Scully puffs out her cheeks. “Not sure. About 30 minutes? The sun was just setting when I came up.”

Stella gives her an affectionate squeeze. 

“We found something,” she says quietly. “There was an imprint of a child’s drawing on his letter.”

Scully pulls back to study Stella’s face. “You think he has kids?”

“It’s likely,” Stella confirms. Scully looks less than surprised.

“Doubling,” she says quietly. 

Not for the first time, Stella feels that Scully understands her better than anyone else in the whole world. They stand together for a little while longer until Scully starts to shiver. Stella leads her back inside.

“I think I’m gonna head back to the hotel,” Scully says, rubbing her eyes briefly. “I take it you’re not planning to join me?”

There’s no judgement or plea in Scully’s voice but Stella feels a sharp stab of guilt nonetheless. It’s not that she doesn’t want to spend time with Scully but she’s too wound up to sleep right now. She needs to work and she knows that Scully understands that but she can’t help feeling like she’s letting her down. After all, Stella is the one who asked her to come to Belfast in the first place and they’ve barely spent any time together.

Stella pulls her close for a kiss, one hand settling on the back of Scully’s neck to keep her close.

“Try to sleep tonight,” Scully says quietly and Stella leads her out to the carpark so she can drive her back to the hotel.

~

Stella finds Dani still in her office when she arrives back at the station, making notes from a file. She nods her greeting and they fall into a comfortable working silence for the next half hour until Dani lets out an almighty yawn and stretches her hands above her head with her fingers interlocked.

“Sorry ma’am,” she says, voice strained from her stretch. “I think I’m gonna take a nap in the break room.”

“When I said being my right hand man would mean you wouldn’t get a lot of sleep, I didn’t mean you’d have to live in the station,” Stella says with a raise of her eyebrow.

Dani shrugs and gathers her coat up in her arms. “You’re basically living here,” she says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Night, ma’am.”

With Dani gone, Stella finds her office oppressively silent and unexpectedly lonely. She does typically like to lock herself away in her office by herself while she ploughs away at a case but something about Dani’s presence in her space is very natural and almost comforting. It doesn’t take long for her to abandon her efforts and grab a couple of hours sleep in her cot. 

As she drifts off in the uneasy quiet, she thinks of Scully.

Consequently, her inevitable nightmare is focused on her partner. She sees Scully crying, screaming, clearly in terrible pain. But she can’t reach her despite how fast she seems to be running. If anything, Scully gets further away. Stella trips, falls - and then she keeps falling. She feels sick.

And she’s awake. With a pounding headache.

_ For fuck’s sake. _

She looks to the clock, surprised to see that she’s actually been asleep for a solid four and a half hours, much longer than she’d anticipated. Probably longer than she can afford. There is still a killer out there, still women in danger. She shouldn’t be sleeping. But a little voice in her head, Scully’s voice, tells her not to think like that. She tries to listen to it but, with every intrusive thought about how those poor women must have felt as the killer choked them to death, it gets harder to believe it.

Stella practically jumps out of her skin when her phone starts ringing on her desk. Lethargically, she reaches for it.

“Gibson,” she says, stifling a yawn.

“Shit, did I wake you?” Scully says, sounding horrified.

Stella chuckles. “No, I’ve been awake for a few minutes,” she says, suddenly remembering the time. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Scully mutters quickly. “I’m at the hospital with Annie.”

“Has something happened?”

“No change, unfortunately. Anything back from forensics?”

Stella rubs the sleep out of her eyes and starts putting her shoes on with her free hand. “Not yet. We should have something by this afternoon. Are you planning to stay at the hospital?”

“Yeah,” Scully sighs. “I had a difficult night. Couldn’t sleep.”

“Belfast has that effect on people,” Stella grumbles.

“Bad night for you too?”

“You could say that,” Stella says, recalling her nightmare with a shiver. “I think I’ll join you at the hospital if you don’t mind. This office is starting to make me claustrophobic.”

The smile is evident in Scully’s voice when she says, “I’ll grab us some breakfast.”

“I might have Dani with me.”

“I’ll get enough for three,” Scully assures her. “Love you.”

“I love you too.”

~

At the hospital, Dani is full of anxious energy and keeps standing up to go for walks while Scully and Stella sit at a metal table in the cafeteria and pick at their Co-op sandwiches. Scully looks tired, Stella can’t help but notice. She’s moving slowly, even blinking slowly. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to try for some more sleep?” Stella asks for the third time.

Scully shakes her head and stretches. “I couldn’t stay in that room any more,” she mutters and Stella definitely understands how that feels.

They don’t talk much, just eat and sit and watch Dani return for a few minutes at a time only to wander off again. Eventually, Stella accepts defeat and tosses the second half of her sandwich into the bin. 

“Shall we go upstairs?” She asks, offering a hand to Scully in an imitation of chivalry. Scully smiles fondly as she takes it and stands. 

While Stella and Scully take the lift, Dani opts for the stairs. All eighteen flights. The thought makes Stella want to lie down. She’s not unfit, not by any means, but she finds climbing stairs so painfully repetitive and boring that climbing eighteen flights in a row might actually bore her to death. Besides, between floors eight and twelve, they’re the only people in the lift and Stella is happy to spend that time kissing her beautiful partner.

It’s a soft kiss, gentle. Stella lets her hands rest comfortably on Scully’s waist where they settle perfectly, like the curve of her body was made just for this. Sometimes, Stella thinks that her entire life has been building towards Dana Scully. She’s always been a realist, endlessly practical, never too emotionally attached to anyone. But every moment she spends with Scully is honest and sustaining. With her, Stella’s obsessive, anxious heart feels at peace.

~

Stella’s phone rings in her bag. She stops pacing and fishes it out, glad of an excuse to think about something other than how fragile Annie Brawley had looked as her grandmother stroked her hair. 

“Gibson.”

“Ma’am,” says Mary quietly. “I think we have the killer on the line to the incident room. He wants to talk to you.”

Stella’s heart jumps into her throat. “Are you tracing the call?”

The could get him. They could find him in they can just keep him talking long enough. They could end this right now.

“He’s talking on an unregistered mobile phone. Cell triangulation is underway.”

“Who’s on the call?” She asks, suddenly worried that it might be McElroy with whom, given his earlier comments about Annie’s internet videos, Stella still isn’t seeing eye to eye.

“DCI Brink,” says Mary and Stella feels her stomach settle somewhat. She can do this. She has to do this.

“Put him through as soon as you can,” she says, briefly catching Scully’s eye before she sets off further down the hallway.

She wonders how she should answer, if she should make it clear she knows who is calling or if she should let him think he’s caught her unaware. She weighs the pros and cons of each, wondering if letting him think he’s always on her mind will do more harm or good. In the end, she just says hello.

“Who’s that?” Says a soft voice.

“Detective Superintendent Gibson,” she says, letting out a breath.

“Stella,” he says, making her shiver. “At long last.”

“You wanted to talk to me.”

“You offered a private conversation,” he says and Stella winces. He’s too clever to be tricked by this charade.

“I did.”

“This isn’t private.”

“Isn’t it?” She says but she knows it’s a completely fruitless effort. 

“I need another number I can call you on - a really private number.”

Stella glances down the hallway to where Scully and Dani are chatting quietly together. She hesitates. Scully is going to kill her.

“07700 900131,” she says. 

It’s done. No going back now. Scully is absolutely going to kill her.

She hangs up and immediately sets off at a jog down the corridor. 

“Dana,” she calls, pointing past her. “In my briefcase there’s my phone with a recorder.”

Scully immediately tugs the bag open, apparently sensing the urgency in Stella’s voice. 

“What’s going on?” She asks as she hands Stella her equipment. Stella tosses her work phone down on top of her coat and begins connecting the recorder to her personal phone.

“The killer called the incident room,” she says, fumbling briefly with the connection. She turns the recorder on, feeling her heart pounding as she waits for confirmation that it’s set up. “He’ll only speak in private with me.”

It takes a moment for what Stella has said to register with Scully but, when it does, there’s a flash of fear across her face. “Stella, tell me you didn’t give your private number to a serial killer.”

Dani’s eyes widen at this.

“I’m sorry,” says Stella, setting off down the corridor again. When she’s a safe distance away, she begins to pace the width of the hallway, anxiety forcing a bounce into her steps.

And then her phone rings. She checks the recorder, double checks, and then she puts the phone to her ear and takes a deep breath.

“Hello.”

“Hello again, Stella,” he says and, somehow, his soft voice is even more threatening now that he’s calling her personal number.

“Now you’ve got me to yourself,” she says, glancing again at Scully who is chewing on her thumbnail, a nervous habit of Stella’s she’s come to adopt. “What do you want to say to me?”

“I like the red nail varnish,” he says. Stella’s stomach clenches unexpectedly. “Was that for me? It was a nice touch.”

Stella lifts her chin and squares her jaw even though he can’t see her. “I’m glad you think so.”

“I’ve been watching you with interest.”

“Have you?” Stella asks, keeping her tone carefully nonchalant. 

“We’re very alike, you and me,” he goes on.

_ How original,  _ Stella thinks. She’s certain she’s heard this line from the mouths of at least a dozen television villains over the years so it doesn’t particularly bother her to hear it again now. She knows she’s nothing like this man and that’s enough for her.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” she says.

“Both driven by a will to power. A desire to control everything and everyone,” he says and, despite her best efforts, Stella feels her resolve start to crumble. “Obsessive. Ruthless. Living and breathing moral relativism. It’s just you’re bound by conventional notions of what’s right and wrong. And I’m free.”

This idea is so absurd to her that she almost laughs. “How are you free?” She asks, making sure her sarcastic disbelief comes through in her voice. “You’re a slave to your desires. You have no control at all. You’re weak, impotent. You think you’re some kind of artist but you’re not.”

“Art is a lie,” he says.

Stella performs an eye roll that would make even Scully proud.

“Art gives the chaos of the world an order that doesn’t exist,” he goes on and Stella is beginning to get impatient.

_ Bait him,  _ says a voice in her head.  _ Make him want to talk. _

“Is that really why you called me?” She asks. “To expound some half-baked philosophy? I’m disappointed.”

There’s a long moment of silence and Stella suddenly has a horrible feeling that she might have gone too far, pushed him too soon. 

“I called to say goodbye,” he says. “I called you to say it’s over.”

“In what sense over?”

Then, he says something that actually surprises her. “I’m walking away.”

“You can’t,” she declares.

“Watch me.”

This sentiment strikes Stella as remarkably infantile, something she’d expect to hear a teenager yell at her best friend after a fight. In fact, Stella is quite certain she’s been that teenager.

“I am,” she says and she’s all at once quite certain that this is not the end, regardless of what he seems to believe. The very fact that he called her, that he’s skirting with the danger of police contact, tells her that he’ll be back. He’s raised the stakes and Stella is sure he won’t be satisfied with anything less than this again.

“Watch me walk away.”

“It’s never over for someone like you,” she says, barely moving. “It won’t be over until I stop you.”

“You had your chance. Now it’s too late.”

“You think I’d let you walk away?” Stella says, allowing her anger to bleed into her voice. “You try to dignify what you do but it’s just misogyny. Age-old male violence against women. For Fiona Gallagher, Alice Monroe, Sarah Kay, Annie Brawley - I won’t let you. You fucked up. You moved against Annie too soon. You didn’t prepare properly, you didn’t do the groundwork, and you didn’t kill her. You fucked up and we’re onto you.”

“If you’re onto me, you’ll come for me,” he says and his voice remains entirely calm. She hasn’t rattled him. “You have no idea who I am and you never will.”

For the first time since this conversation started, Stella wishes she had someone in her ear advising her on what information she can give out to scare him, to make him believe she knows who he is. As it is, she’s going to have to do her best to strike the balance between rattling him and showing her entire hand.

“I know plenty about you,” she says, images of the letter rushing back to her all in a flash. “I know you were raised religiously, most-likely Catholic given your attitude towards Sarah Kay’s pregnancy. I know you’re less qualified than the women you kill, that you feel on some level threatened by them.”

Stella thinks back to the Nietzsche quote he included in his letter and decides to take a leap on one of her less concrete deductions.

“I know that you’re educated, probably to university level. I think you studied either literature or philosophy but, given the philosophical hash you were propounding earlier, it’s more likely to be the former,” she adds, hoping this dig at his intelligence will be enough to unsettle him before she reaches the main point she wants to drive home.

“Wrong,” he says but even this one word betrays that he’s unsettled.

She has him where she needs him, she’s sure of it.

“I think you have at least one child - a girl. How old would she be now? Seven or eight?” She swallows, trying not to allow herself to fall into this little girl’s shoes, to imagine her existence too vividly. “Does she love her daddy? Does she look up to him? Does she think he’s the most important thing in her whole world?”

Her own father’s face springs unbidden to the forefront of her mind. She pushes him away.

“Does she dream about him? What’s going to happen when she finds out who you really are? What you really do.”

Stella is barely breathing.

“It will destroy her,” she says, pausing to make sure this message hits home. “It will kill her.”

The following silence stretches on and Stella doesn’t dare to breathe. This is her last blow. She has nothing left to say to him. The ball in is his court. 

But there’s nothing. The phone beeps against her ear as the connection dies. 

She jerks the phone away from her ear at the sound and stands frozen for a moment, suddenly aware of the tears pooling in her eyes. All she can do is stare at her phone for several seconds after she hangs up, trying to pull herself together enough to rejoin her partner without instantly bursting into tears. 

After several slow breaths, she turns, eyes automatically seeking out Scully.

But she isn’t where Stella expects her to be. She’s standing not more that two feet from her with tear tracks staining her cheeks. Her expression is laced with pain. Stella recognises it as her own.

“Oh, Stel,” she whispers and her voice cracks. “Is this why you haven’t been sleeping?”

Stella blinks back a fresh threat of tears. She doesn’t know what to say, not yet, especially because she doesn’t know exactly how much of the conversation Scully was privy to. 

Gently, so gently, Scully eases the phone and recorder from Stella’s grip and sets them down on top of the water cooler which stands just to her left. She takes both of Stella’s hands in her own and brings them close to her chest, ducking her head to place a soft kiss on Stella’s knuckles. This is too much.

Stella wraps Scully up in a desperate hug and clings to her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Scully whispers, swaying gently in the embrace. 

“I thought I could handle it,” Stella says, relieved when the knot in her chest begins to loosen. 

Scully sighs, turning to kiss Stella’s temple. “Someday you’ll believe me when I tell you that you don’t have to do this on your own anymore. I know you  _ can -  _ but that doesn’t mean you have to.”

“I know, I’m sorry. Everything was just so hectic and there were so many other things I needed to tell you and I suppose I thought I didn’t want to overwhelm you,” Stella says all in a rush. 

Scully is quiet for a moment. “Is this your quota thing again where you think there’s a limit on how many difficult things you’re allowed to tell me?”

Somewhat embarrassed that Scully has noticed this particular pattern of thinking for her, Stella pulls back, steps away. “Maybe,” she says with a shrug and Scully doesn’t press her on it.

But Stella knows her well enough by now to expect a proper conversation about this later. For now, though, Scully is looking almost amused.

“I can’t believe you gave your number to a serial killer,” she says, laughter bubbling into her voice. “I mean, it took me several glasses of wine to get your number but all he has to do is ask.”

The absurdity of the situation is clearly hitting Scully all at once because she’s giggling quietly. Her laughter is infectious and Stella finds herself biting back a smile. Every rational part of her brain is telling her that this isn’t appropriate, that they’re in a hospital waiting for a prognosis on the victim of a brutal attempted murder - but she’s laughing anyway. She's laughing like she might never stop.

"Ma'am," says Dani from behind her and she turns, trying to school her face into something more appropriate. 

Beside her, Scully is quiet.

"Annie Brawley has regained consciousness."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao sorry this took so long turns out all i needed was an essay to procrastinate on


End file.
